November 30th, 1999, may well be remembered as a turning point in global thinking. That was the day when tens of thousands of protesters in Seattle brought the first day of the World Trade Organization summit to a standstill. Environmental activism, long considered the province of straggly-bearded, soya-chomping hippies and bored rock stars, had finally hit the big time, and with it concerns about the pace at which globalization is destroying not only the natural world, but also indigineous cultures and important historical sites.
Tourism, one of the world’s largest industries, is also one of the worst offenders. Ironically, the business of shipping people to far-off destinations is also one of the main driving forces in making every city in the world just like home. The tourist prefers to have his “local culture” neatly packaged between lunch at a dependable international chain (preferable, it mustg be admitted, to the insipid, pseudo-indigineous fare of tourist-traps) and an afternoon trundling through the local Gap franchise.
